Michelle Gregoire and Brandon Withers, along with KCC’s YAL chapter are suing the school, several high-ranking administrators, and its Board of Trustees for violating the students’ constitutional rights when they were charged with trespassing and jailed for seven hours with charges that were dismissed 10 days later.

The plaintiffs claim that the school violated their rights of freedom of speech, due process, and equal protection under the law. They believe that, as a public institution, KCC is bound by the First Amendment.

Before the campus police put them under arrest, school administrators claim Gregoire and Withers were in violation of the school’s solicitation policy because they had not received prior approval to recruit for their organization, which the students claimed they had repeatedly attempted to obtain through official channels to no avail.

The lawsuit alleges, “By policy and practice, Kellogg Community College claims the unchecked right to prohibit students from engaging in practically any constitutionally protected expression anywhere on campus unless they first obtain permission from KCC officials,” adding:

Thus, students may not speak spontaneously anywhere on campus. Furthermore, KCC maintains an unwritten speech zone policy limiting student expression to one location on campus. If students express themselves on campus without a permit or in any other location, KCC deems them to be violating the Code of Conduct for Students, which exposes them to a variety of sanctions, including expulsion. Through the permitting process, KCC retains unfettered discretion to determine both whether students may speak at all and where they may speak. In so doing, it fails to protect students against content and viewpoint discrimination. These policies and practices chill protected student speech and disable spontaneous student speech on campus.

According to the lawsuit, the school allows free speech, but only on information tables at the school’s student center, which can only be used with the official permission of the administration.

KCC’s Public Information Director shared this statement with Reason:

Kellogg Community College learned this week that an organization, the Alliance Defending Freedom, has announced it is filing a federal complaint against the College regarding a trespassing incident which occurred in September 2016. The complaint itself has yet to be delivered to KCC; therefore, the details of the complaint have yet to be reviewed by legal counsel. The College, which supports the U.S. Constitution and takes seriously any allegation that one’s freedom of expression has been violated, will address this matter thoroughly.

With advice from their attorneys, Gregoire and Withers declined to speak with Reason, but YAL president Cliff Maloney, Jr. said in a phone call that his group has launched a national “Fight or Free Speech” campaign. He describes the campaign as a coordinated effort to tackle and defeat ‘free speech zones’ and unconstitutional policies. He believes that free speech should not be confined to a few bulletin boards controlled by administration.

Maloney also adds that these students did not expect to be arrested and that it wasn’t the purpose of their activity. YAL’s aim is not to make free speech martyrs out of students, its aim is to teach students their rights.

The arrest was captured on film and can be seen below:

Ariana Marisolis a contributing staff writer for REALfarmacy.com. She is an avid nature enthusiast, gardener, photographer, writer, hiker, dreamer, and lover of all things sustainable, wild, and free. Ariana strives to bring people closer to their true source, Mother Nature. She graduated The Evergreen State College with an undergraduate degree focusing on Sustainable Design and Environmental Science. Follow her adventures on Instagram.